


Bring a Spring Upon'er

by ghiblitears



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mermaids, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Shipwrecks, meet cute if cute were a merman with slightly too-sharp teeth, the lightest of angsts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-27 20:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19797400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghiblitears/pseuds/ghiblitears
Summary: A life of piracy has led Lance to many a new sight and as many new people as there are ships in the sea, but none have captivated him the way the strange and wondrous merman Kinkade does.





	Bring a Spring Upon'er

**Author's Note:**

> This is my piece for the kinkance zine I participated in earlier this year, In My Scope! I had a ton of fun writing this and have been super excited to post it. <3 This zine was amazing to participate in and the other pieces are really dynamic and beautiful -- if you see them around give them some love!

Sky met sea without introduction, crashed together without rest until it was impossible to tell which was which. The only sign Lance had was the salt that stung his eyes and soaked him to the core, where it would eventually dry to grit and white on his tan skin. The sea rolled beneath him, he decided after a hazy consideration, and the sky above. 

Endless, churning, stormy grey surrounded him, with no ship in sight. On a boat the barren landscape might have been welcome. Adrift in the rough sea, not so much. 

He clung to a piece of driftwood — part of a shipwreck, he supposed, although it was so charred and broken as to be unrecognizable. Splinters made their homes in his hands, in his arms, and snagged his clothing with fervour. His trip overboard had left him disoriented in the rolling waves, and it took what little strength he still had to hold on as the wind buffeted him and howled past his ears. 

The gale had taken them all by surprise when it ripped through the waves, ferocious as a kraken. Black had stayed on course as best she could, but for all her worth even she couldn’t weather an impossible storm. One by one they'd tied down the sails, and it was only a matter of time until the swells began to wash over the deck with purpose. 

Lance had gotten unlucky and had been the only one to be swept overboard, pulled from the sea and away from his crew-mates – at least, he hoped he had been the only one. 

He spared a moment of exhausted thought to drift back to the Black Lion and its crew; Hunk, the galley cook and his fellow gunner; Pidge, the navigator; Coran, the coxswain; Allura, the radiant and powerful first mate. Captain Shirogane and Quartermaster Keith had held fast to the helm, and time had seemed to slow enough for him to watch their horrified faces as he fell from the ship and into the sea. 

His grip on the driftwood faltered and he slipped further into the water. The waves and wind pulled at his clothes, wore him down with their unrelenting rhythm. 

Lance knew he would die out here. The sea gave no quarter and even he couldn’t barter with her. He would lose his strength and drown, or a shark would snatch at his leg and drag him down to the abyss, unless he survived long enough for an eventual scorching thirst to kill him first. 

A flash of colour in the water caught his fractured attention for a moment – a hint of coin-glint gold in stark contrast to the unbroken grey. It disappeared beneath the waves as quickly as it had shown itself, leaving him to wonder if his sapped mind had conjured it. The way things had progressed he wouldn't be surprised if the salt had gotten to his brain. 

It appeared again, closer this time, and vanished just as swiftly. 

Another swell crashed over the driftwood, this time with enough force to loosen his grip altogether. Lance sank into the sea like an embrace, cocooned in the cold water. There was an irony in drowning that escaped him in the moment, how the lovely ocean could also be so deadly. His thoughts slowed to a crawl as he drifted down towards the depths. He could have made peace with this fate with long ago. Every pirate — every sailor, for that matter — knew the dangers out here. The sea didn’t discriminate. The sea wouldn’t spare him just because he was Lance Serrano, silver-tongued lucky-shot pirate of the Black Lion. The sea didn’t even know his name, and wouldn’t care to learn. 

She would drown him anonymously and without remorse; this he knew for sure. 

His descent halted abruptly when a hand closed around his wrist, grip tight enough for sharp fingernails to leave scores in his skin, cuts that burned like fire in the saltwater. A flurry of movement yanked him up towards the surface and pulled him away from the murky depths like a ratline on a boat. When he opened his eyes the gold floated before him; a flood of it, as though a treasure chest had tipped overboard. But it was something more; something startlingly alive. The gold kicked upwards with strength enough to surprise him. 

He pulled up alongside his rescuer and met a pair of wide, curious eyes, the same glinting shade, with pupils that faintly glowed in the gloom. The eyes danced back and forth across his vision as whatever held him tugged upwards. The face Lance pieced together was unmistakably human – all planes and angles, cheekbones sharp as a sword, and with a handsome angular jaw. His dark brown skin was unbroken except where Lance’s gaze slid south to the slits on his neck. But the eyes continued to catch his attention like a fishhook; piercing, unyielding, painful. 

He’d heard stories of these creatures of the sea, namely how they caught humans trance-like in their gazes before devouring them. 

Not a moment later his head broke the water again, and despite his exhaustion Lance managed to gasp for a lungful of air. His rescuer kept him from drifting back beneath the ocean and he fell into their embrace, head pillowed on their shoulder as he lay back in the water. 

He looked backwards and met those eyes again, wide and staring all the way into his soul, and that was the last thing he saw before he fell unconscious. 

*** 

Lance came to with a gasp, hands clawing at the rocky ground beneath him. The surface was slick beneath his palms. 

He sat upright. The act made his head spin, but the sight he was treated to did that much better. A jut of rocky coastline met the beach, pushed into the sea the way a dock sits over the water. He seemed to be propped up on the edge of a rockpool, deep enough to swim in and connected to the expanse of blue through a thin channel. The sea crashed and churned against the rock. 

The aftermath of the tropical storm must have woken him; he didn't feel quite so parched now and the salt on his body seemed to have mostly washed away. The dregs of it were still coming down and had left the beach shiny with rain water. When he glanced to the rock he sat on he saw that his gear had been carefully arranged over it to keep it from falling into the ocean. Next to it sat a half-clamshell the size of his palm, perched on the rock and nearly full with water. It was in his hands before he even checked if it was saltwater or not. He downed it in one swig, glory against his raw throat. 

“Hello?” he called, scanning the horizon. The island looked unoccupied – no footprints in the sand and no man-made landmarks. Beyond the horizon line the ocean remained empty – still no ship in sight. His gaze landed on the water once again, and the sight of two eyes peering up at him made his heart jolt in his chest. 

Coin-glint gold peered back – the same shade as a handful of pieces of eight. The eyes that had saved him. 

He stared over the side, into the water. The eyes disappeared, and then a moment later an enormous splash broke the calm surface. Lance fell back with a screech as the creature grasped the rock and pulled itself up. His still-spinning head conjured an absurd image of a shark voyaging onto dry land to get him. 

Needless to say, the sight of a man with a gold fish-tail and equally golden eyes hoisting himself up onto the shore blew that thought straight out of the water. A handsome, toned man... with a fish tail. 

If he hadn’t thought the salt had gotten to him before, he did now. 

“Wow. Did you —" He gestured vaguely to the ocean. “You saved me, didn't you?” 

Silence. The merman watched him with those curious eyes. 

“I know you probably can't understand me, but thank you. I'd be on my way to Davy Jones if you hadn't found me.” He shuddered at the thought. “Also, thanks for not eating me. You aren’t still planning to do that, are you?” 

There was only a moment's silence before the merman gave him a sharp-toothed smile. “Who said I couldn't understand you?” he asked, perfectly clear. 

Lance’s mouth fell open in shock. 

The merman leapt off the rock and back into the water with a splash that soaked him to his skin – he spared a moment to be annoyed that his finally-dry clothes were now wet again – and Lance watched him kick powerfully through the rockpool, gold tail churning against the shallow waves. He surfaced a little way away, dark curly head popping up above the water. He watched Lance for a moment, studied him, before he dived back under. Lance shook his head in disbelief. 

Of all things, a merman. This promised to be interesting. 

*** 

And so Lance was saved by a creature of the depths. 

Over the course of being marooned, Lance learned the merman's name -- Kinkade -- and that although he wasn’t unfamiliar with humans, they still fascinated him. He followed Lance along the shoreline as he gathered driftwood to burn, observed him as he set up a lean-to, and stayed with him when the sun dipped below the horizon, taking up residence in the rockpool to watch it disappear. In a situation as odd as his, Kinkade’s presence became a comfort. Lance couldn’t deny his curiosity about the merman, either; at times he seemed human enough for Lance to forget he had gills and a golden-scaled tail, but every so often he would catch a glimpse of Kinkade’s too-sharp teeth, or catch himself in the thrall of Kinkade’s bright, alluring gaze, and remember that he was something unknown. His quietness contributed to his elusive nature – he remained a constant presence but a silent one, and sometimes it led to moments where Lance would forget he was being watched until a splash on the water slipped Kinkade below the surface. 

Nearly everything Lance had heard about merpeople came with a clause. Supposedly merpeople had the most beautiful singing voices of any living creature, but they were apt to follow a song by drowning whoever listened. A kiss from a mermaid would grant a sailor’s safe return, but they were more likely to sink their teeth into their fascination’s flesh. A merman’s scale granted incredible healing properties, but trying to snag one was a fatal move. Lance would never know the truth of these things, but he watched Kinkade all the same. 

In the days that followed his rescue Lance started to construct a raft, tying fallen palms together until they started to form, with imagination, what could almost be considered a platform. It may have been in vain – he could be stranded there for any length of time, and only time and luck would tell if any ships would pass close enough to signal. He needed a task to ground him while he waited for rescue. 

“This will get you home?” Kinkade asked, eyeing the raft with what Lance hoped wasn’t skepticism. 

Lance shrugged. “Maybe.” Where home, or even the closest port was, he didn’t know. “You haven’t seen anyone passing through, have you?” 

Kinkade pulled his upper half out of the rockpool. His tail churned the waters as his gaze followed Lance’s skillful hands knotting the planks together. A decade of piracy had seared knot-tying into his mind like sunburn, and it felt good to be doing something familiar. 

“You think you’re the first person to wash up here?” he asked. The tone was dry, but when Lance looked over he saw the barest hint of humour beneath the surface of Kinkade’s blank stare. “How did you think I’d learned to talk?” 

“First, no. Handsomest, maybe.” Lance pulled a knot tight. “And that usually renders people speechless, so you can imagine my surprise.” 

That finally drew Kinkade’s rare smile out. Lance met it with his own. Getting one from him was always a treat; with how serious he tended to look, a smile made him look younger, kinder, more open. Once or twice Lance had caught a glimpse of his too-sharp teeth and been hit with another reminder that despite how normal Kinkade seemed, the merman's intentions could still be strange and unknown. 

Strange and unknown was good, though. The horizons beyond normal had led Lance into a life on the sea, and were how he’d fallen in with his crew. Now it had led him here to a desert island, with nothing but a merman who was as easy on the eyes as they came. Those things were not found in ports and harbours, and not found on the safe and trodden paths. They compelled him, rather than left him complacent. 

Kinkade slipped back into the rippled water. His golden gaze thoughtfully followed Lance until he drifted out of sight beneath the surface. Even after several days on the island the grace and power in the way the merman moved through the water still awestruck him, and how wavering sunlight would catch in the iridescence of his tail like the glint of a sword. Beauty and danger – the two constants of the sea. 

He resurfaced not a moment later, startling Lance out of his work. His hand was clasped around something, and when Lance reached for it Kinkade dropped a small, pearlized shell into his waiting palm. It blinked through shades of brilliant blue like reflections on the sea. 

“Like your eyes,” he said simply, then dived back beneath. 

Lance tore his gaze away from the rockpool to study the shell. He turned it over in his palm, admired the way it shone. A warm feeling settled in his chest, as though his heart had become the tropical sun. 

Kinkade captivated him more than anyone he'd met on the land, better than any mythical sirensong. There was truth in that strangeness that he couldn't get enough of. 

He stared out over the sea, unsure whether his hope lay in spotting a ship or finding it barren. 

*** 

A splash pulled Lance abruptly out of his daydreams one early morning. He sputtered and bolted upright, rattled out a cough to get the seawater out of his lungs. 

“Hey!” He glared towards the rockpool. Kinkade must have been below the murky surface. “What was that for?” 

His head popped up not a moment later, and one of his hands followed to point out over the sea. “There’s a ship." 

Lance scrambled to his feet and scanned the horizon in search of familiarity, both in anticipation and dread. This island wouldn’t have been far from where he’d gone overboard, and if Black and her crew hadn’t simply pulled into port after the storm... but there could be any number of ships out there, and he didn’t dare signal until he saw who it was. They’d had enough run-ins with sailors who wanted nothing more than to see pirates dance the hempen jig to forsake caution. 

But there was only Man-O'-War with black sails he knew of, and it had just unfurled said sails to catch the wind. 

Lance threw a handful of fuel on the fire and sent the flames up to brush the sky. “Time to cast off!” 

Kinkade grabbed for the line that held the raft and pulled it backwards into the sea. They’d made preparations over the weeks in case they spotted a ship. Lance stepped aboard with practiced ease. 

“Ready?” He glanced over the side to see Kinkade with the line already in his grasp, churning the still rockpool into a series of whirlpools with his long golden tail. On the horizon the ship changed course until it pointed like a compass needle towards the island. 

Something in Kinkade’s expression seemed off. There was a melancholy that Lance hadn’t seen before, a dullness in his bright eyes. 

“What is it?” Lance asked. 

Kinkade propped both arms up on the raft’s edge. “You’re going to leave,” he said quietly. 

Lance felt his spirits drop. “I'm sorry. My crew needs me.” 

Kinkade nodded. His normally captivating gaze wouldn’t meet Lance’s. 

“But don’t look so sad. I’ll come back,” Lance said. “Now I know where to find you, and I can finally have some place to return to that isn’t the port inn.” He cracked a half smile that Kinkade didn’t return. “But until then, I’ll miss you.” 

“No one has ever come back,” he said. “They’ve all gone back out to sea, and never returned.” 

“I will,” he pledged. “I’ll be the first. I promise.” 

At that, Kinkade went still and simply watched. Bright eyes explored every inch of his face. Then he kicked upwards to propel fully out of the water, perfectly in line with Lance, and at the apex of his jump he seemed to hang suspended in the air. His mouth met Lance’s in a gentle kiss, and then he plunged back beneath the sea with a splash. 

Lance’s thoughts turned as insubstantial and light as seafoam. He perceived nothing beyond the taste of seasalt on his mouth and the gentle rock of the raft as it floated in place. He held fast to the sensations like he had clung to the driftwood at sea. 

A promise, more than anything. An act to anchor Lance’s return. 

Kinkade popped back up to the surface and reached out to stabilize the raft. He wore a shy smile that rivaled the beauty of the predawn light. For someone so otherworldly, he looked a lot like home. “Ready, Lance?” 

Lance closed both hands over his. 

Every pirate — every sailor, for that matter — knew the dangers of the sea and of what occupied it. Lance had fallen in love with both things anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still active and posting on my vld tumblr (babykeithsmullet)!


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